Seeking fare evasion data

Concerned with the way the city polices transit fare evaders, advocates and elected officials are pressuring the New York Police Department (NYPD) to release data on arrests for turnstile jumping.

Councilmember Rory Lancman announced he is introducing a bill that would require the NYPD to release quarterly reports on the number of fare evasion arrests and summonses.

At a June 7 press conference, Lancman said the arrests are unfairly targeting immigrant communities.

“Not only is the city arresting far too many people for fare evasion, it is placing thousands of New Yorkers at risk of deportation,” said Lancman. “It’s not just that we’re running them through the criminal justice system and giving them a criminal record for the rest of their lives, but that the focus on these fare arrests are in communities of color and in neighborhoods with very, very high concentration of immigrant populations.”

“If we’re going to take this notion of ‘sanctuary city’ seriously, we cannot have anybody, not one person, getting deported for jumping a turnstile,” said Craig Levine, Director of Policy Reform for The Bronx Defenders.

The bill would require the NYPD to divulge which precincts and subway stations were connected to the arrests, and include data for race and gender.

“We know from experience that this is not just a talking point, this is a real fear, a real concern, and it happens to real people,” said Jared Chausow, Advocacy Specialist with Brooklyn Defender Services.

David Jones, President and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York (CSS) and an MTA board member, in voicing support for Lancman’s bill, said he was shocked to learn about fare evasion arrest statistics while working on the “Fair Fares” campaign, which has called for reduced-price subway fares for low-income New Yorkers, which Jones called “a connected issue.”

“Now we’re on track to having 24,000 arrests this year, overwhelming Black and Latino young people,” Jones remarked.

“Not only is this criminalizing poverty, but it’s also a disturbing use of our officers,” he said.

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Criminal justice advocates said it was long overdue for the city to share data on fare-beating arrests.

“In an era of Trump, where jumping a turnstile can get you deported, we need to know how the NYPD is policing subway stations,” Posada said.

A City Hall spokesperson said that the NYPD has taken steps to increase transparency through tools such as CompStat. “City Hall and the Department will review this bill as part of that ongoing effort,” the spokesperson said.

While Lancman said he expected the fare-beating data to “show how unfair the city’s prosecution of fare evasion is, and the disproportionate effect that it has on communities of color and on immigrants,” Jones said that the goal was not to disparage the police.

“We’re doing this not as an effort to bash the NYPD, but to raise legitimate questions about is this an appropriate use of city resources, estimated to be as high as $51 million to find fare evaders,” said Jones.

He noted that advocates would continue the fight for “fair fares,” despite it being left out of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s budget.

“If you remove some of the tensions of people not being able to pay ever-escalating cost of transit, that would drop these numbers dramatically,” stated Jones.

Levine said that the city must change the way it polices and prosecutes fare evasion to meet the goal of closing Rikers Island.

“There is not a chance that the administration’s recent commitment to close Rikers within a decade can happen without cutting the population at least in half,” Levine said. “And that cannot happen without prosecutorial discretion, changes in police philosophy and approach which are not undermining of public safety, and reforms of policy areas like bail and speedy trial. All of that has to happen.”